


Tale of Cities

by Natalya



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Brainwashing, Character Study, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Love, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 20:08:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1197855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natalya/pseuds/Natalya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna Romanova, the Black Widow.  She goes by many names and her life can be measured in cities as well as in years.  A story that describes her life one city at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tale of Cities

**Stalingrad (Now Volgograd), Russia, 1932**

Two people lay dead, a man and a woman, one a scientist fallen foul of the regime, the other a writer who had done so with passion and love. It had signed their death warrants. 

There was ash in the air, smoke clinging to the back of her throat as flames leapt through the building. Her wide green eyes stared at the ruins of what had been her home as strong arms picked her up, taking her away from the nightmare that had unfolded around her as she had stood, silent and staring in the doorway to the kitchen where her parents had been executed. 

Soldiers took her away, took her to a general, took her through the cold and the night, took her away to a new home. The silent little girl just watched everything, her sharp face pinched with cold, and they knew that she would not cry, she would not show fear. She hadn’t as she had watched both her parents shot, hadn’t when they dragged her down through the building, toddling on skinny legs without shoes, feet turning blue in the snow. 

The girl had just watched with her big liquid eyes, he flaming red hair mimicking the colour of the flames that destroyed the building where she had lived, the only home she had ever known. That was why they had taken her. The general would be pleased, would take her for his programme, this girl could be a great asset. 

**Moscow, Russia - 1940**

The scent of rosin and suade, of old wood and dusty velvet hang in the air, dust motes dancing in the light streaming through the long windows. The sound of the piano filled the room, accompanied by the sharp instructions of Madame Gushkina the ballet mistress, her voice like a whip crack in the room. The girl was now twelve, putting on her pointe shoes, shoes that she had been allowed only that year. Her thin fingers were deft as they tied the ribbons, as deft with the silk as they were with the garotte she was trained to use. That would come later. 

She floated across the floor, her slender body one with the music, moving with skill and grace, following the snapped instructions that came in time with the notes that flowed from the piano. That was when she was within her own world, despite the rest of the class. This was where she discovered what freedom could feel like. 

The dancing would be followed by more training, by hand to hand combat in the heat of the summer, long hours at the range, still longer being taught to become a shadow, to move silently, mind trained to pick up important information, to recall every single detail to be repeated back to her superiors. 

For those moments though in the dance hall, she was free. 

**Novosibirsk, Russia - 1942**

All that she can smell is death, the coppery tang of blood, thick and cloying, sticking to the back of her throat, and the stench of fear, sharp and harsh, prickling at the back of her nose, making her scowl slightly until a look from her handler makes her school her expression back into complete blankness. 

They will penalise her for that later. No emotion should be shown at this stage. This is the part where they determine whether she will move on in the programme or whether she will be terminated. She cannot show fear. Cannot show hesitation. 

This will be her first kill. 

A door is opened and a man is brought in, hands bound behind him. Two guards, one on either side of him kick the back of his knees making him drop to the floor before her with a groan. She had thought to use the garotte that she had been presented with, but she knew she did not have the strength for it, not quite yet, not judging by the thickset muscular man before her. Instead she checks the array of weapons, ignoring his whimpering and pleading. 

He must die. She does not need to know why. Her handlers have brought him here, perhaps a dissident, perhaps a criminal. This is a test that she must pass. 

She picks up a knife, tests the edge against her thumb before stepping forwards, slitting his throat in one swift movement. 

She does not move back quite quickly enough, and the gout of blood coats her in red. 

She doesn’t react. 

She learns for the next time. 

**Leningrad (St Petersburg), Russia - 1952**

She is pulled out of the row of girls waiting in line, silent, stood to attention in the main hall. There is no explanation as to why she has been taken out. Twenty pairs of eyes follow her as she leaves the room but nobody utters a sound. 

There is no explanation as she is marched down the corridor, the booted feet of the guards echoing on the concrete. She remains silent, ever watchful, not saying a word. There is no point. Questions are not answered, not here. Here there is only the orders and the obedience that follows. Other girls have disappeared and she is not stupid. She knows to simply watch and to wait. 

Her success rate has been 100% so far. This is something that she has been proud of. She does not fear where they are taking her, so she continues to keep pace with the guards, her movements sharp and concise. They bring her across the base to where she knows the General’s office is and knock sharply on his door. 

A low voice bids them enter and they nod for her to go through the door alone. 

The General has a man standing at his side. She knows who it is. They all know who it is. 

The Winter Soldier. 

The American. 

She is handed over to him for training and she nods once before she is told to follow him out of the room and for training to begin in hand to hand combat. 

She is the best in the programme. 

He is the best that they have. 

She learns from him, thirsts for the knowledge that he can give her. She is like quicksilver, flaming red hair, bright green eyes and a smile that is like a knife, sharp and dangerous. 

He teaches her well, teaches her to fight, teaches her to shoot, teaches her English like an American, teaches her to move like a shadow, to become a ghost. 

She learns all of this, relishes the challenge, rises to it and while she is learning all of this, she learns him as well. 

He is a wolf. 

She is too. She knows this. They are both survivors, both hungry and dagger-sharp, keen edged and lethal. 

She learns that behind the cold grey eyes there is a warmth that she has never known before, and beneath the sharp commands is an edge of affection that is not the same as the affection that they have been taught to put into their words to lure a target into a sense of security. She learns that he can laugh. She learns that she can too. She learns that learning from him, when they are alone and they talk as they fight, that can feel like freedom in the same way that dancing does. 

He is taken away on a mission and she knows she will not see him again for a while. She feels a strange sense of loss but pushes it away. 

She is a weapon. 

**Moscow, Russia - 1953**

She is handed to the Winter Soldier again for more training. 

They spend weeks at the range, sparring, roaming the rooftops of Moscow, shadows in the winter night. He tells her what they have planned for her. Lets her into a secret of what is to come, what they will do to her. Tells her about the serum that he has flowing through his veins, tells her what it is like. 

He does not lie. 

Not to her. 

They strap her to the metal table, the lights above bright, making her head swim slightly. She watches as the scientists mill around her, all in white coats, clipboards in hand, talking in low voices to one another. 

There is the prick of a needle in the crease of her elbow and she feels the ice cold of the serum creeping through her. There is a prick at her other elbow and the same feeling of ice sliding through her. She forces herself to remain calm, forces her breathing to remain regular. Forces down the rising fear that tries to push up from the depths of her soul. 

He told her what to expect. 

She has learnt that he does not lie to her. 

The ice gives way to fire, a raging inferno that scours her from the inside out, burning through her veins, sweeping across her skin. Every muscle is straining in agony as it tears her apart. Swirling colours surround her, nothing makes sense, there is nothing but the sound of screaming. 

As the pain begins to ebb she realises that the screaming is her, the sounds torn from her raw throat, her cheeks wet with tears she did not even know she had shed. She is exhausted, shaking, wrists and ankles bleeding where the restraints have cut in. 

But it is over. 

She is carried to her quarters and left there, curled up on the bed, cold and shaking, tear tracks dried into salt on her cheeks, crusted blood dried on her arms and legs. She does not know how long she lies there, but she hears the window open, and instantly is alert and ready to defend, to attack. She slides out a knife from beneath her pillow as a dark figure enters. 

He is silent as he crosses the floor, waits for her to put away the knife, then still without speaking sits beside her on the bed, pulls her into his arms and holds her through the night. 

In silence he leaves again with the dawn. 

**Paris, France - 1963**

Age no longer means anything. It is simply a number. It has not materially meant anything since the serum that she received in Moscow. 

It has been ten years already. She and the Winter Soldier have been partnered on many missions together. They do not always remember each other when the mission starts. By the end they are lovers and in love once more, discovering each other again and again. Sometimes they remember from the beginning. Those times she cannot help but enjoy. 

They were taught that love was for children, for the children of Mother Russia for their country. 

She knows better now. 

She loves with a fire that burns strong and true and it at first almost frightened her, but now, now she revels in it. 

They prowl the City of Lights together. 

Lights cast shadows, deep and dark and that is where they are to be found as they move from place to place. She moves into the light when she must, seducing the mark, a glittering, beautiful creature, unearthly, using every trick that she knows, sliding into another skin, becoming someone else until she kills. Then she is herself, it is her strong hands driving the knife home, leaving a message. It is her who sponges the blood from her dress in the bathroom as best she can, it is she, Natalia Alianovna Romanova who leaves the hotel through the window, catching the thin line that comes down from the rooftop. 

She is pulled up by strong arms, pulled into the embrace of the man waiting at the top with the smouldering gaze and wicked smile. He wraps his jacket around her shoulders and they disappear into the night. 

The next day it rains in Paris, it starts as they finish their breakfast together in a small cafe. 

She doesn’t care, not really. There’s something in the rain that makes her feel free and alive, she dances in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower as he laughs at her, unshadowed and genuine. 

**Berlin, Germany - 1973**

She is a living weapon, the finest the Red Room has produced, she is the Black Widow and the name is enough to terrify those who know her by reputation. She has been many people over the years, has had many different lives thrust into her head, but beneath all of it, she is a weapon, and she is the Black Widow. 

In Berlin she works with the Winter Soldier once again, with Yasha. They move through the arms dealer’s warehouse like phantoms, killing without being seen, gathering the intelligence that their mission required. The mission will make waves within that community, it’s a strong message being sent out and who better to do it than them? 

They are, to the outside world, nameless, faceless, ageless legends. 

They are feared and with good reason. 

The Red Room does not teach mercy. Neither does it teach hesitation. They are known for their brutal efficiency and the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier take this to an art form. 

They are told to wait in the city at a safehouse until they are collected, to ensure that the message has gone across loud and clear and there is no further need for any action to be taken. That suits her just fine. In the small apartment overlooking the city there is time for them to spend together, for the man behind the Winter Soldier to be unleashed, for her to become the woman that she is behind the code name. They talk and they laugh together, he tells her stories of things that he half remembers, fleeting bits that he cannot quite grasp and she tells him about a man who played the violin, and a woman who loved him who sang her lullabies and how the memory always ends in fire and in the icy snow. 

They spend the nights wrapped in each others arms, and she wonders whether this is what freedom is. 

She does not know that, but she does know that this is love. 

**Kabul, Afghanistan - 1979**

She does not enjoy the oppressive heat. 

She is a blade forged in the flames and the ice of a harsh motherland. 

She is nothing if not adaptable. 

She remains in the shadows, working at night when the air is cool. She gathers intelligence, slipping in and out of buildings, in and out of bedrooms of officers as they sleep leaving death in her wake. There are mutterings of a flame haired djinn from the desert and it makes her laugh when her Soldier, her Winter teases her about it as they lie on a flat rooftop, baked by the sun, staring up into the night sky at the stars.  
He does his own work, bloody and he does not speak of it. 

She does not need to know, she is concerned with her side of the mission. They are not working together, but instead in parallel. She is content. As long as the mission objectives are achieved then she is content with that. 

The days in Kabul drag on into weeks and she is tired of the dust and the relentless sun. 

She cleans her knives by the light of the moon, watching the way the metal glitters in her fingers, seeing his reflection as he approaches her like a shadow from the darkness. She sheathes the knives, slowly and deliberately, turns to face him and sees a familiar smile as he pulls away his mask and goggles, letting them fall from the ground. 

They are both filthy, sweat-stained and dusty, but neither of them care. 

In those moments there are but the two of them and the whole damn world fades away. 

The soft sound of fingers scuffing across the edge of the roof as one man, followed by another hauling themselves up make she and the Soldier break apart, grabbing at their weapons rather than their clothes. The weapons are more important. 

It is not their enemy. 

Not the enemy they are sent there to fight. 

This is the Red Room guard. They are dragged apart, drugged and restrained. They are taken away, away from the heat and the dust of Kabul and when they arrive back in Russia she finds it is all that she craves because this, this Russia, this land of snow is a fresh hell of torture and pain and she loses him, loses the Soldier because they wipe him from her mind, wipe her from his and throw him back into stasis once again as they do between so many missions, because when they don’t, his programming starts to break down, and he starts to remember. 

He knows this because she knows his secrets. 

She has glimpses of the memories he once had. 

Now she has nothing. 

There is a space where he was. 

**Beijing, China - 1987**

She is sent with a language in her head that they have put there, that rolls off her tongue as naturally as breathing. She knows who her target is and what she has to do. She knows that they will be sending backup, a sniper on the rooftop if the occasion arises. 

She does not need to know who it is. They would not tell her even if she asked. All she needs to know is that they are there if she gives the signal. 

There is nothing save the mission. 

She is the character that she is supposed to be. 

Who she is has been pushed into the background. All that she has is the character, the mission and her training. That is all that she needs. 

The first few weeks go smoothly, and she settles into the rhythm, winding the mark around her finger, playing her part flawlessly as she has been trained to do. It is after the first few weeks however that she starts to remember. 

At first it is small threads of thoughts, fleeting, like wisps of fog burnt away by the sunrise. They disappear as she tries to grasp at them, and she writes off the attempt as futile, instead concentrating on the matter at hand. There are times when she can feel the eyes of the sniper on her as she attends business functions and dinners, can feel where he would be watching from the rooftop and for a few instants wonders how she is so certain of this. 

She was not trained to question this way. 

The thoughts begin to materialise more, and she begins to tug at them, trying to unravel the threads of the memories. It is painful, as though they have been blocked from her, and that knowledge makes her all the more determined, a smouldering ember of rebellion burning within her with a low, intense heat. Alone in the apartment she is using she sits on the edge of the bed, head in her hands, trying to remember, sifting through the thoughts with a methodical, clinical edge. The closer she gets to remembering, to what she wants the worse the pain grows until it feels as though her mind is turning to ash. 

She tastes bile at the back of her throat and she barely makes it to the bathroom where she kneels, vomiting into the toilet as the agony threatens to claim her. 

A final wave nearly takes her into unconsciousness, but she feels herself breaking through a barrier and clings to the memories as she fights of the darkness that threatens to claim her. Shaking she presses her palms to the cold tiles of the floor, pushing herself up into a sitting position, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. 

She gets to her feet by force of will, cleans her teeth, stares at her pale faced reflection in the mirror, seeing that her skin is pale, almost grey and her hair was clinging to her face in damp strands. She saw the flicker of a reflection in the mirror and turned, a knife in her hand within a split second. 

The man who stood before her was the one from her memories. 

The look on his face told her that he remembered as well. He covered the distance between them in a couple of strides and she smiled. 

This time their secret would keep. 

This time they would not be betrayed. 

This time they would not be dragged apart again. 

This time the years would be kinder. 

And so they were, until the Soviet Union fell. 

She was on a mission at the time, and he was frozen. She was cut adrift with no knowledge of who she really was, or what she was supposed to be doing, half her memories missing, the rest a patchwork. She searched for him, followed every lead she had, but she did not know where he had gone, if he was even still alive. 

**Saint Petersburg, Russia - 1993**

The blazing fires reflected in the gold of the domes as she stood on the rooftops, surrounded by the swirling smoke, a vicious, satisfied smile curving her lips, savage and bold. There was heat and blood and death and it was everything that she had trained for. 

She was the best, she knew that, and they knew it too. 

Her masters, her trainers, those who had killed her family, had turned her into a living weapon, who had taken her mind again and again and stuffed it back in, in whatever order they chose, those who had ripped away her love over and over, they had known retribution in the form of her bullets and her knives. 

They had begged and they had pleaded for their lives. 

They had trained the mercy out of her. 

They had replaced it with a harsh, brutal efficiency. 

They had not known where the Soldier had ended up, sold on and on, or perhaps buried or dead. None of them knew, and she dispatched them one by one, leaving their bodies to rot or to burn. Now she stood on the rooftops above the blazing remains of the training rooms, watching as they crumbled to ashes and dust. 

It was right. 

It was fitting. 

The corridors and offices of the Red Room had run with blood, a gushing river of red that she had stalked through, a wolf tearing down its prey, an unstoppable force, just as they had created her, just as they had envisaged she would be. 

She watched the reflections, watched the flames, and through the distortion of the golden domes it looked as though the city itself were afire. 

Natalia smiled. 

**Grozny, Chechen Republic - 1994**

She had been working as a mercenary since the fall of the Soviet Union, since she had been left alone in the world. Her skillset was in demand, her name was legendary and there was good living to be made from what she had been trained to do since she was a child. 

There was no shortage of contracts for her to take and she could pick and choose between them, building up her network of contacts along the way, commanding the fees that she chose. 

Yet there was a feeling that she could not shake, something missing, something that was not quite right. That spark of rebellion that had burned within her became an all consuming fire with no outlet. 

She did not believe in the causes that she worked for. 

She merely worked because that was what she did. 

She had lived for so many years now, she was 66, and still looked 26. She had been fighting and killing for the majority of those years, brainwashed and wrung out over and over again. She felt a world weary weight pressing down on her more and more as time went on, but steadfastly continued. She was a weapon and a lone wolf. All she knew was how to hunt and how to kill. 

She knew that she was being followed. Had felt the eyes on her while she had been working on her latest target. She had resisted the urge to look up to the rooftops because she knew damn well where a good sniper would watch from. Knew also how to stay out of their way, but hadn’t because she knew that she had been being watched on her last few missions and whoever it was hadn’t made a move then. They were watching her but if they were going for a kill they would have done it by now. A few times she had caught sight of a male form on the rooftops, watching, but had ignored them, not letting them know that they had been seen. 

Going back towards the apartment she was renting for the duration she felt eyes on her and changed her route. Never lead them to your base. Never let them catch you at home. Messages drilled into her again and again. 

This mission was over. She had neutralized the target and had collected payment. Now was time to find out who was following her. Ducking into an alleyway she scaled the fire escape on the side of a building, taking her up to the rooftops. She took out her gun in one smooth movement, walking across the flat roof, movements smooth and confident. She could see his silhouette not far away from her, could see the lights from the street below gleaming off the curve of a bow. 

So that was who had been following her. Codename Hawkeye. Marksman. Assassin. She had heard of his work, knew of his reputation. What she was not quite as sure of was who he was working for. 

Without hesitation she lowered her gun, walking across the rooftop towards him, seeing the glint of an arrow strung and ready to fly. 

She felt no fear in those moments. 

She was a child of the Red Room and fear was an emotion that was burned out of them at an early age. To fear she would have to have concern as to whether or not she carried on living. She did not. There was nothing more than the blood and the death and the job at hand, alone and unceasing. 

The archer watched her approach. 

She knew he would have been given a kill order. 

He doesn’t kill her. 

He could have, at any point when she was walking across the rooftop, but then she had already guessed he wasn’t out to kill her. She wanted to know what he wanted. 

He wanted to bring her in. 

There was nothing left for her, not back in Russia. 

Not as a mercenary.  
So she followed him, watched as he put his reputation on the line, for her, someone that he didn’t know. 

He swore he’d seen something within her. 

She didn’t know that there was anything still to see that wasn’t blood and death. 

**New York, USA - 1994**

She screams. 

The pain is closely akin to when she was given the serum. 

This time she is being given her memories back once again. They slam into her head over and over, more blood more death, faces, names, different lives, memories of everything she has done, everyone she has been and every person she has killed. When the Soviet Union fell she hadn’t got her memories, not all of them. She knew that she was the Black Widow, she knew what she was capable of and she knew her own reputation. She was a blank slate with hidden memories prickling at the edges that she could not grasp. 

She was a mercenary. 

It hadn’t mattered. 

Now it was agony as it streamed through her consciousness until she was left, strapped to a metal table once again, shaking all over, wrists and ankles bleeding. 

This time though a cool hand touches her shoulder, the gesture firm, reassuring. She looks up to see the archer standing there, and there is no judgement on his face, no pity, just a look that tells her he is going nowhere. 

He tells her as much. 

Her ledger is dripping with red and she knows it now. 

This is her chance of redemption. 

This man has given her that chance. 

She owes him a debt. 

**Bogota, Columbia - 1998**

They are pinned down in a back alley, crouched behind a set of dumpsters, surrounded by puddles of stinking liquid that she’d rather not consider. The air is hot, cloying, so humid it feels like every breath is more water than air. 

She has been part of SHIELD for four years now. 

She is no longer Natalia Alianovna Romanova, she has allowed her name to be Americanized, she is Natasha Romanoff. 

Has been Clint’s partner for that time. 

They are Strike Team Delta, and their success rate is better than that of any other team within the organisation, something that they are both proud of. 

It’s been four years of learning for her, learning to trust, to let someone back into her life once again. She had mourned James in private, had let nobody touch that particular wound. But Clint had taught her that she could laugh, she could relax, that her life was safe in his hands, that they were both safe in the hands of their handler. 

She had learnt to fight with someone else, seamlessly until she knew instinctively where he would be at any given moment, so that he knew where she would be. 

It had scared her at first. 

Now she would not change things. 

In a brief respite between shots being fired they check their available ammo. Bad intel on an arms and drug dealing potential terrorist cell in the city had put them in this position. They’re both covered in blood and filth, and if they manage to make it back to base once again she is going to tear someone down about the awful intel that they were given. 

She glances at Clint, knows just how bad their situation is by the grin on his face and the fact that he can’t stop making snarky comments and back chatting Coulson over his comm. 

She refuses to go out this way, risks a glance out of their hiding space, sees the odds that they are up against. 

She has faced worse odds. 

She knows that they need to get out of there. 

She heals quickly. 

Calculating risks is what she does. 

She throws a smoke grenade, signals for Clint to go up high, waits for half a second as he scales the wall, obscured by the smoke as she bursts through in a blur of motion, dealing out death as she does, using the last of her ammo, pulling her knives, seeing through the stinging smoke as arrows fly past her with devastating accuracy. 

Later they sit in the jet in silence, patch each other up. 

Later still they sit in her quarters, a bottle of vodka between them. 

**Budapest, Hungary - 2006**

Smoke hangs thick in the air. 

Flames leap and dance in the night. 

The tang of blood hangs thick in the air along with dust from the rubble of the side of the building that has collapsed. The mission has gone so far south she can hardly believe it. They have no contact with Coulson. They have no extraction plan. 

Her long, deep red evening gown is torn, bloodstained and she is streaked with dust and sweat. Clint’s tux jacket is gone, his shirt bloodstained, eyes wild and hair standing on end as he lets arrows fly in a blur. She is back to back with him, picking off the advancing enemy. She can feel blood soaking through her gown, trickling down her skin, mingling with sweat. 

She runs out of ammo from one gun and uses it to club someone who gets too close before tossing it aside. This is a killing ground and she knows that they need to get out of there. 

She flashes Clint a cold, killer’s smile. If they are going to go down she will do it fighting. She will get him out of there. Still, still she owes him a debt. Her next gun runs out of ammo as they split apart, diving behind pillars in the destroyed ballroom. She kicks off her shoes, using the strengthened stiletto heel of one to brutally kill a man who comes too close. A bullet ricochets from the pillar she is standing behind and shards of marble slice her skin. She takes the dead man’s gun, using it with unerring accuracy then hears the click of an empty magazine. 

There is a sudden cessation to the gunfire and she hears the sound of a body slumping to the ground, silence over her comm. Clint is down. She doesn’t hesitate but sprints across the marble floor, sliding to a halt behind the pillar that he went to. He is out of ammo and so by the sounds of things are the enemy. 

The sound of booted feet advancing over rubble comes to her and she looks at Clint, head lolling slightly as he stares up at her, blue eyes wide as he swallows hard, blood blossoming across his shirt. She narrows her eyes, using a knife to slice away at her skirt, handing him a wad of material to press to the wound. 

The footsteps come closer, and the smoke is growing thicker, choking and cloying. She can just make out the stars in the clear night sky overhead where the ceiling has gone, and she turns, loosing two of her knives in fluid motions. They both find their target, buried deep in the mens throats. She is down to two knives now, one strapped to her thigh, the other at the small of her back, harder to access but there if the occasion arises. 

There are six men left standing. 

She will get Clint out alive. 

The pain she is in does not matter. 

She was built for this. 

She is a weapon. 

She takes two of his arrows and breathes in slowly, lets it out, feeling all emotion and all feeling drain from her, a voice in the back of her mind, a memory of grey eyes turning cold, teaching her the preternatural focus necessary for taking on those kinds of odds. 

She steps out from behind the pillar, step steady and sure, strangely graceful as she looks at the six men in front of her. Slowly she twirls the arrows in her fingers, ready to utilize them. 

There is a pause as they size her up. 

She sees the confidence in their postures, the exhaustion draining from them. 

These men are stupid to underestimate her. 

They will pay for that with their lives. 

The first one rushes at her and she leaves the languid grace, explodes into a blur of motion. This comes as naturally to her as breathing. She is in her element. Every lesson that she learnt as a child, as a teenager and as an adult through the Red Room is ingrained in her and she is a whirlwind, a devastating, destructive force. 

She stands in the now silent ballroom, bodies at her feet. 

There is a crackling as her comm comes to life and she hears Coulson’s voice in her ear demanding a status update.  
Hears Clint’s sarcastic reply, gasped out. 

They will get out of there alive. 

**New York, USA - 2012**

She is 84 and still fighting. 

She has infiltrated and spied on people and organisations all over the world. 

She has killed and has pursued, been the hunter and the hunted. 

She is a SHIELD Agent, she is a child of the Red Room, she is part of Strike Team Delta and she is an Avenger. 

She is the Black Widow. 

Nothing has prepared her for the Chitauri attack. Something so far out of the realms of anything she or Barton have ever trained for. 

Fear comes at the hands of the Hulk. Not the pursuit through the helicarrier. No, it was watching the ultimate loss of control, too soon after watching Barton’s loss of control, too soon after hearing that he had been compromised. 

Fear is pushed to one side and she, a spy and an assassin, wades into a war. 

She fights alongside these men, all so different, yet so well matched. The soldier, out of time and place, and that resonates with her, with her archer, with Iron Man, with a god, with a man who holds within him a terrifying beast. Together they fight and she doesn’t know how it is going to end. 

There is no time to consider the alternative to winning this battle. 

She fights alongside Clint, lets humour bleed through to fill some of the space between them, falls into the familiar rhythms of battle at his side, remembering so many other cities and towns over the years where they have worked together. It’s been nearly twenty years since he brought her in, all the way back in Grozny. She hasn’t changed. He has. Slowly aging over the years. He was so young when he made that call, and she hopes he hasn’t lived to regret it. 

She thinks that now she may have repaid that debt. 

Clint is taken to the rooftops and she remains on the ground with Steve. There is something about the way he commands, the way he talks that now and again pulls at the thread of a memory. She is too busy to pursue it, too busy to catch the fine trace of thought. Instead she fights, and flies and she feels the adrenaline flowing through her like a crashing wave driving her onwards. Her blood sings with the rage of battle joined and she is in an arena of gods, men and aliens and she belongs there, feels the savage satisfaction, craves the victory with an overwhelming want. 

She can close the portal. 

She waits for the command, for Steve’s voice to come over the comms. 

She knows he is waiting, hesitating, waiting for Stark to come through. 

The command comes and she waits a split second longer as she sees the Iron Man suit plummeting down towards the portal. 

He will make it. 

She thrusts the sceptre home. 

They have won. 

She sits in a shwarma joint with the rest of the team, a band of misfits brought together under the name of the Avengers and she feels a blessed rush of cool relief alongside the exhaustion. 

They have won. 

**Washington D.C., USA - 2014**

He was back. 

No longer missing. 

She had felt her breath catch for an instant as Steve had described his assailant. There was nobody else that it could have been, the footage confirmed it that was all. 

Now she knew his past, the past before the Red Room, before she had ever known him. Before the Winter Soldier, before Yasha, before James he had been Sergeant Barnes, had been Bucky Barnes, had been Steve Roger’s best friend. 

She was not going to lose him again. 

Two years ago Loki had said she was bargaining for one man with the world in the balance. 

For this man she would tear the world apart and rebuild it one piece at a time. 

She tells Steve all she knows, he would tear down nations for this man too. Between them they will bring him in. This she knows with a certainty that outweighs all else. This will be a fight like no other because she knows him, knows what he is capable of. 

He does not know them, but he will. She has seen that sudden spark, that recognition that is fleeting, that means that their control is breaking down. 

The city explodes in fire and devastation. 

She and Steve take hit after hit and they keep on fighting. 

Three people ageless and linked by time fight through the nation’s capital. 

Two are victorious. 

The battle was hard fought, the man who was a ghost, was nothing but a half-believed legend has come out into the open and marched down the streets bringing destruction and devastation in his wake. 

Now she stands side by side with Steve, watching as they give him his memories back. She watches as he howls in agony, as his body tenses, bowing up from the table as the straps cut into his wrist and ankles. He is covered in a fine sheen of sweat and oh how well she remembers what that was like, twenty years ago for her, but in her mind as fresh as the day that it happened as she watches him. 

She hears Clint come into the room that she and Steve are stood in, lets her lips quirk into something approaching a smile as he stands beside her, his presence real, solid and grounding. So many times they have stood side by side before now. His shoulder nudges against hers and she leans slightly against him, almost imperceptibly, but the connection is still there. 

Finally James goes still and she watches as Steve goes in, lets him greet his best friend, lets him be the one to talk to him. She saw the agony on Steve’s face, she could do no less than let him see him, be with him. They release James and she watches as he and Steve embrace, talking in low voices, too low for her to hear. 

She’s not sure if she wants to hear it. 

She knows how brutal the next few weeks and months will be for James. 

Knows that the nightmares will come, the self-flagellation for things that he’s done. 

For him it will be worse. 

She knew nothing but the Red Room. Her only other memories were vague, her mother’s voice, her father playing violin, but there was nothing more. He had a life before the Red Room, had lived, had grown up, had had friends and sweethearts. 

She feels Clint’s hand on her shoulder, turns to see Steve leaving the room, hears him telling her to go in, to see him, to see Bucky. 

She can’t think of him as anything but James but she doesn’t object. 

She goes through the door into the room and stands there for an instant, a split second of hesitation. 

She sees the look in his eyes, behind the exhaustion, behind the hurt and the realisation of all that he’s done. She sees the way that his lips curl up in a familiar smile, so familiar she swallows, an answering smile rising to her lips as she crosses the space between them. 

There are no words in that moment. 

Words aren’t needed. 

He gets unsteadily to his feet and she crosses the remainder of the space between them, pulls him into her arms, his lips meeting hers in a searing kiss. 

She is unmade in those moments. 

Remade. 

She holds him closer, feels his hands pressed against her back, his cheek against her hair, both of them just breathing slowly, together. 

She loves him. 

He loves her. 

They are together once more. 

**Prague, Czech Republic - 2014**

She moves through the ballroom, circling slowly, her eyes searching the crowd even as she sips champagne and makes indolent small talk. 

She’s tracking a mark, hunting her prey with an intensity that is hidden by the character she has donned for the evening. There is intelligence that needs gathering and she has been sent in to do it. She is in her element, knows how to play each and every person that she comes across. 

In her ear she can hear Sitwell, knows he’s tracking her movements, waiting for her check ins, sat in a van outside in the cold. 

On their private channel she hears James, knows he’s watching her every movement through his sniper’s scope, even as he lies out in the freezing cold in the snow, rifle set up, ready to pick off opponents if things go south, waiting, covering her six like he did for so many decades. 

She smiles. 

The mission is a walk in the park. 

She has the data memorised, has secured a rendezvous for the following night. 

She makes her excuses and leaves, she has better places to be. 

That night they spend in each others arms, in an apartment deep in the heart of the city. There is no fear that they will be dragged apart by masked men in the night. There is no need to worry about these things, not now. 

The morning comes and they go to work, two ghosts drifting through the ancient streets of the city, heading for the rendezvous. 

When they reach it, they go to work, she meets the target, goes through the motions, keeping him and his backup busy while James infiltrates the compound, moves through it like a silent, deadly phantom, undetected, stealing the information that they are after. 

She gets his confirmation through her comm. 

The barest flicker of a smile curves her lips. 

She thanks the target for his co-operation, stands up, walks out. 

Seconds later the building detonates. 

They stand side by side and watch it burn. 

He is the Winter Soldier. 

She is the Black Widow. 

Her tale is one of miles and of cities, of love and betrayal, of friendship and trust. 

It’s not just her tale anymore. 

This is their tale, their cities, their lives intertwined and linked by a love that was forged in blood, ice, iron and fire. 

Enduring. 

THE END.


End file.
